


love doesn't discriminate (between the sinners and the saints)

by lethargicProfessor



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Fluff and Angst, Lavilena Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 16:33:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5212913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethargicProfessor/pseuds/lethargicProfessor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em></em><br/>it just takes and it takes and it takes<br/>and we keep loving anyway<br/>we laugh and we cry and we break<br/>and we make our mistakes<br/>and if there's a reason I'm by her side<br/>then I'm willing to wait for it </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>For LaviLena Week 2015</p>
<p>One Prompt Per Day:<br/>8th: Promise<br/>9th: Confession<br/>10th: Sacrifice<br/>11th: Distance<br/>12th: Memory<br/>13th: Fairy Tale<br/>14th: Growth</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Promise

The nights before big missions are the worst.

Lenalee doesn’t sleep well, not with the growing knot of anxiety in her gut and in her throat, the dreams of blood and gore and death looming in the dark. She paces and meditates, reads and sketches and talks to people, all in an effort to chase away the dread coiling in her like a spring, but even that doesn’t last very long.

The nights before missions, she usually roams the halls alone, and a small sick part of her wonders who they’ll be mourning for the next day.

It’s a surprise when Lavi finds her, tucked against a windowsill nervously biting her nails, staring out into the pre-dawn light.

He takes her hands lightly, smoothing out her curled fingers, and his touch is such a shock that she nearly falls off her perch.

He looks tired, but grins as he steadies her, hopping onto the sill beside her. He’s still holding her hand, rubbing soothing circles into her palms. “You’re up early.”

She shrugs, and she knows he knows that she hasn’t slept at all. Lavi’s sharper than anyone gives him credit for, but he’s tactful enough not to point it out. He settles with his back against the window and her hands in his, and waits.

“I’m scared,” Lenalee says, and it sounds so resigned to her own ears that it hurts. He hums in acknowledgement, hands steady and soothing.

She worries she’ll start crying if she says more, but he just waits, head resting against the window, eyes closed, and his hands chase away the cold in her fingertips. She swallows past the lump in her throat and squeezes his fingers. “I’m scared no one will come back this time.”

His hands still, and for a second she thinks he’ll leave. Instead, he sits up, startling green eyes boring into her soul. She drops her gaze to her lap, and he chuckles.

“Tell you what,” he says, hooking his pinky around hers, wiggling his arm until she looks up at him. His smile is subdued, strained but honest as he looks at her.

“Tell you what,” he repeats, raising his hand – and hers – to his face. He makes a show of kissing his thumb, pinky secured around hers, and his hands are callused and familiar and warm. He stares at her solemnly, hand to his lips. “I promise we’ll see each other again. After this whole mess is over we’ll come back.”

He lowers his hand, and guides her hand to her lips, waiting expectantly. “Now you.”

She cracks a smile at that, and raises her hand slowly, tightening her pinky around his as she places a small kiss on the knuckle of her thumb. “I promise we’ll see each other again.”

He nods, satisfied, and drops his hand away. Lenalee can’t help the small twinge of sadness at the loss of contact. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything; he just gets to his feet and stretches, holding his hand out to her once more.

She takes it silently, allowing him to walk her back to her room, his promise ringing in her ears.


	2. Confession

Lavi always wondered what death would look like when it came for him.

In his more morbid moments he wondered if death would come as a stray bullet from a battlefield, as a sickness he wouldn’t be able to shake, or worse, take him silently in his sleep.

As an exorcist, he didn’t have to wonder. He saw death every time he stepped out of the Order, knew that death would come with a leer and the sound of metal screeching in his ears.

He imagined death so often it almost felt like a memory, and yet the moment it finally reached him, he couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed.

Death was not swift and painless, or long and drawn out. It just came, bringing with it a cold that sank into his bones.

He heard someone scream, but the sound was watery and far away, darkness starting to edge into his field of vision. It was for the best. He didn’t want his last images to be of that barren battlefield, of the blood and smoking remains of akuma, of his comrades…

Comrade. Singular.

Lenalee was his partner for that mission.

She would be _devastated_.

The stray thought alone roused him, and he choked on bloody spittle, struggling to stay focused, eyes roaming the battlefield for her familiar figure. The air burned his lungs, and he felt his heartbeat stutter once, twice, but he managed to spot her silhouette in the growing darkness.

She rushed to his side, and he could hear her talking, crying, but he couldn’t make sense of the sounds. It sounded foreign, which in itself was worrying considering the amount of languages Lavi knew.

He tried to say something, but his body was too stiff, the cold driving the scant breath from his lungs. She shushed him, a warm hand smoothing the hair from his forehead. She called his name, her voice hoarse, angry and terrified.

He wasn’t supposed to do that to her. He swore he’d never hurt her.

He loved her.

And the worst part? He never told her.  He was _dying_ and he had never managed to get those words out.

Panic made him fight against the cold, flooding his veins where blood couldn’t. He felt her hands on his arm, on his chest, on his face, a burning touch cutting through the numbness and he wanted to cry. (He might have cried, he couldn’t tell.)

There was so much he had to do! So much he hadn’t done, so many things to see and feel and say—

Lenalee was crying and he was crying and death…Death was pulling him closer, he could feel it in every heartbeat, and he couldn’t, he couldn’t go he had to tell her but it hurt to talk and it hurt to breathe and he didn’t want to go like this he had so much more to live for…!

He had to tell her. He tried, but his tongue felt like lead and his mouth was filled with copper and sawdust and every sound came out a choked gurgle.

His confession died on his lips.

He died in her arms.


	3. Sacrifice

It was strange.

Normally, in a battle, he was hyperaware of every movement, mind striding ahead in leaps and bounds; Bookman Junior played a chess game in his head while Lavi carried out his movements on the field.

But now, the buzzing in his head was silent, perhaps even for the first time.

Right now, the only thing he could see was the broken body ahead of him. She looked so small, too pale and too frail, a butterfly pinned in a display case.

She was just a kid.

They all were, but Lenalee had something to live for and she had a family to go back to and she threw it all away…

For him.

Lavi. Junior. Whatever his name was. He didn’t deserve the time of day from her, much less her life.

He stood impossibly still on the battlefield, his hammer a lead weight in his hands, and he stared at her. She was gone, she was _dead_ and yet he felt empty.

(It was a good thing Bookmen were heartless, he thought. If he wasn’t, his heart would have shattered.)

Ignoring the ongoing battle around him, he approached Lenalee’s body, dropping to his knees. Gravel dug into his skin but he ignored it, reaching a shaking hand out to brush her face.

Her cheeks were cold, glassy eyes staring up at the cloudy sky above. Slowly, reverently, he closed them, watching with a detached sort of interest as his fingers shook.

It was strange.

Shrill laughter cut through the air, and the blank emptiness he felt was replaced by a deadly fury he had never felt before.

The hammer in his hands tingled as he turned to face the Noah. He snarled, and again, the innocence in his hands reacted. It shifted in his hands, and with every step the hammer grew heavier, the reassuring weight turning into something sharp and vicious, fueled by his anger.

It was good he was a Bookman, he thought, swinging his new innocence high in the air, bringing it down hard enough to shake the very earth.

His heart was gone, and now, he was going to take theirs. 


	4. Distance

The letters didn’t come very often, once every few months or so, but Lenalee waited for the mail diligently every day.

The letters would arrive creased and dirtied, dust from across Africa and Asia and beyond shedding on her carpet. She didn’t mind, too enraptured by the familiar slanted writing on the envelope to notice.

He wrote about his travels, usually, describing his location with breathtaking detail, so much so that Lenalee felt as if she was there with him, breathing in the sights and sounds of the outdoor markets, hiking in the wilderness, listening to his stories.

(It made her forget, for a moment, that she couldn’t accompany him. Her legs twinged to remind her why she couldn’t.)

She wheeled around her apartment as best as she could manage, his letters on her lap, as she hurriedly went about replying. She didn’t have much to offer in terms of adventures – the war had made sure of that -- but she was a good source of information, and she made sure to keep tabs on those who were still around.

They carried on like that, Lenalee reading his letters eagerly for years, replying with as much information as she could manage, though nothing she wrote could compare to the experiences Lavi – no, Bookman, now – was seeing.

The letters started arriving less and less often.

She worried, but waited, seasons passing her by. Her friends worried for her, but she remained steadfast in her beliefs.

He would return some day. Until then, she would wait. 


	5. Memory

When he was young, he saw his eidetic memory as a gift. It allowed him to record _everything_ , as a Bookman should.

Every battle, every significant moment in history was remembered, as vibrant and luminous in his memory as it was the day he experienced it. It was something he was proud of, something that made him unique and special enough to be a Bookman, and that pride carried him through his early years.

As an adult, he’s come to realize he was very wrong.

Remembering everything is no gift.

Remembering the tortured screams of his comrades and the smell and sight of blood spraying across the battlefield is nothing to be proud of. There is nothing he’d love more than to forget about seeing his friends – and they were friends, they were _his_ friends in the end – die.

He wishes he could forget, and wonders if it would hurt any less as he stands in the cemetery.

The Millennium Earl has been defeated, but he feels hesitation in mourning his friends. He doesn’t want to bring them back, though they deserve life and so much more.

He stands in the cemetery and remembers and regrets, tears running down an impassive face as he scans the simple headstones. The dates and names he remembers, of course, all neatly recorded in his books for the Clan. The exorcists and finders that died in the last battle for the sake of humanity, all living on as footnotes and indexes, as ink on paper.

He walks through the rows of graves slowly, the flood of memories almost overwhelming as he struggles to sift through the Facts as they were, and the memories that he made as ‘Lavi’. Those, he treasures more than he should, and despite being Bookman, he still feels the need to hide them away, only to be brought out on special occasions.

His feet carry him around in circles, paying his respects to those who’ve left him behind.

He stops at her grave last, the weight sliding off his shoulders as he takes a seat, her name neatly engraved into the marble, the Rose Cross catching the fading light of day.

He sits with her and remembers, hand resting loosely on the cold stone slab as if he could still touch her and feel her, soft and warm under his fingers, the memories of their times together – professionally and otherwise – lulling him to sleep.

He leaves before dawn, returning to his duties, a handful of flowers and a life full of memories left behind. 


	6. Fairy Tale

“What do you mean, you’ve never seen a Disney movie?”

Lavi shrugged against the horrified exclamation. “I just haven’t. It’s not weird.”

“Yes it is,” Lenalee gasped, patting Kanda’s face. “Tell him it’s weird.”

“It’s weird,” Kanda deadpanned, sighing at Lenalee’s expectant silence. “Even _I’ve_ seen a couple.”

“Yeah, even he’s seen a couple,” Allen muttered, wiggling his fingers weakly at the popcorn bowl. “Mind you, this is Kanda we’re talking about.”

Lavi rolled his eyes, nudging the popcorn over to Allen. “It’s not that big of a deal. They’re just movies. They’re not even good.” Lavi shrugged, dropping his head on Lenalee’s. “The fairy tales in those movies are just watered down versions of the real thing. No one gets a happily ever after in the source material. They get dead.”

“You’re cynical and sad and we’re going to make your heart grow.” Lenalee somehow managed to untangle herself from the couch and Lavi’s grip, disappearing into the hall only to reappear with a handful of DVD cases.

“I’m leaving if you put on the ice queen one,” Kanda threatened, grunting in protest when Allen dropped his head heavily on his chest. “Fuck that one.”

“Why don’t you let it go, Kanda?” Allen suggested, rolling away with a laugh as the other attempted to whack him with a pillow.  

Lenalee stared at the ceiling for a moment in despair, stepping over the grappling duo to the TV. “We’re watching Beauty and the Beast.”

“I suppose that’s acceptable.” Allen rolled over, curled up around the popcorn bowl with a possessive gleam in his eyes.

The look Lavi gave Lenalee when she returned to his side was vaguely reproachful. “Are you passive-aggressively implying I’m a beast?”

“Would I do that?” She beamed at him, that sickly sweet smile that told him he was fucked, and turned to the movie. 


	7. Growth

She’s been watching him for almost half an hour, brow furrowed thoughtfully, and he isn’t quite sure if he should say something or not. He doesn’t have to wonder for long, though.

“When did you get so big?” She asks, a tinge of annoyance in her voice, and he can’t help the startled laugh that comes out.

Her cheeks flare red and she puffs indignantly, patting her immediate vicinity for something to throw at him. The scrap of paper bounces harmlessly off his knee as he stifles his giggles. “Shut up! You know what I mean.”

“Do I?” He teases, instinctively raising his hands to cover his face. Lenalee’s blushing brighter than his hair, but she marches over to his chair, pushing a cushion into his face to smother him.

They struggle for a moment, his laughter and her irritated grunts filling the quiet library, until Lenalee gives up and perches herself on his lap. He wraps an arm around her waist loosely, setting his book on the arm of his chair.

“You’re rude,” she sniffs imperiously, glancing back to shoot him a soft smile. Lavi shrugs, nuzzling her shoulder, relaxing when she shifts to card her fingers through his hair.

They sit like that for what feels like ages, a quiet moment of relaxation in the war, until she sighs above his head. Curious, Lavi looks up, resting his chin on her shoulder. “What?”

“It’s nothing,” she says, clearly lying. At his raised eyebrow she relents, poking his forehead. “Just thinking.”

“’As it often happeth that the very face sheweth the mind walking a pilgrimage, in such wise that, not without some note and reproach of such vagrant mind, other folk suddenly say to them, ‘A penny for your thought.’” Lavi quotes with a grin. “Sir Thomas Moore.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Lenalee replies, returning her fingers to his hair. “It’s nothing.”

“Not nothing,” he mumbles into her shoulder, arms tightening around her waist. “It’s bothering you.”

“It’s not.” She squirms as his fingers drift down, tracing lazy circles on her thighs, twining her fingers with his to keep him still. “I was just thinking about when we first met.”

He remembers that, staring down at the coffins and the young girl crying over them. He remembers the derision he felt, and pushes the memory away. “What about it?” He asks instead, aiming for casual and missing by a long shot.

Lenalee smiles, squeezing his hands. “I was just thinking about how young we were. We’ve grown a lot.”

“Yeah?” Well, their first meeting _was_ years ago. It was only logical that they had grown. “That happens.”

She rolls her eyes and loosens her grip, shifting on his lap again to cup his face. “ _You’ve_ grown a lot. You smile a lot more now.”

He wants to say he’s always smiled, because that’s essentially what ‘Lavi’ is, but Lenalee’s perceptive and he knows what she means.

Her thumbs brush his cheeks, leaving a scorching trail in their wake, and he’s uncomfortably aware of her body pressed against his.

He’s spared an awkward explanation when she stands, patting his cheeks lightly. “Also you’ve physically grown and you’re too tall now. I don’t like that.”

“I’ll try to work on that?” He manages, flushing darkly at her laughter. 


End file.
